Brain Cancer Vaccine Statistics Show Results by Doubling Survival

Added by Elivia DeVries on October 5, 2010

US researchers stated on Monday that patients who had been diagnosed with brain cancer glioblastoma and were treated with the Celldex Therapeutics Inc vaccine lived up to double as long than patients who have undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

This type of brain cancer is known to cause the death of patients within one year.

The vaccine acts inside the patient’s body by causing the mutation of a gene that helps the cancer to grow and develop, gene known as the epidermal growth factor receptor.

The study that revealed the amazing results of this vaccine was published in the Journal Clinical of Oncology and Dr. John Sampsom from the Duke University located in North Carolina stated that: “It does appear to help patients live much longer than we could have expected”.

Dr. Sampson told Reuters’ reporters that the vaccine killed cancer cells that carried the mutation in all but one patient. Patients who participated in the study are still alive after five years since they’ve been diagnosed, and Dr. Sampson said that this is unusual with the brain cancer glioblastoma.

On the average, half of the people diagnosed with this type of cancer pass away within one year, and other that do survive past the first year don’t live more than three years.